Reds Sign Josh Osich, Matt Ball To Minor League Deals
The Reds have signed left-hander Josh Osich and righty Matt Ball to minor league contracts with invitations to major league spring training, Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer relays.
The 32-year-old Osich divided last season between the Red Sox and Cubs, the latter of whom acquired him at the Aug. 31 trade deadline. Osich combined for 18 1/3 innings of 6.38 ERA/5.97 FIP pitching between the teams, and the 92.4 mph average he posted on his fastball fell well short of his lifetime mean of 95. On the bright side, Osich did log 11.78 K/9 against 2.45 BB/9 and record a 54.5 percent groundball rate. The Cubs designated Osich for assignment after their season ended.
Ball, 25, hasn’t reached the majors since the White Sox used an 11th-round pick on him in 2013. Also a former member of the Rangers and Angels organizations, Ball has registered a 5.24 ERA with 8.6 K/9 and 3.6 BB/9 over 391 2/3 minor league innings.
Nationals Re-Sign Javy Guerra To Minor League Deal
The Nationals have signed right-handed reliever Javy Guerra to a minor league contract, according to Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. The deal comes with an invitation to spring training.
Guerra could now spend a third straight season with the Nationals, who first acquired him via waivers from the Blue Jays in May 2019. He has since thrown 69 1/3 innings of 4.67 ERA with 7.1 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9. Guerra picked up 15 2/3 innings with the Nats last season and recorded a 4.02 ERA/4.53 FIP with 7.47 K/9 and 4.02 BB/9. Washington outrighted him after that, but he’s now back with the organization.
Guerra, who turned 35 in October, has spent time with a few teams since his major league career began in 2011 with the Dodgers. He owns a respectable 3.73 ERA/3.99 FIP with 7.31 K/9 against 3.58 BB/9 over 296 2/3 frames.
Cubs Sign Matt Duffy To Minors Deal
The Cubs have signed infielder Matt Duffy to a minors deal, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports. The pact comes with a $1MM major league salary and up to $500K in incentives.
The 29-year-old Duffy is best known for his time in the majors with the Giants and Rays from 2014-19. Duffy picked up 1,771 plate appearances during that stretch and hit a solid .282/.338/.380 with 22 home runs and 32 stolen bases. At his best, Duffy was a 4.4-fWAR player as part of the Giants in 2015, when he slashed .295/.334/.428 with career highs in homers (12) and steals (12) in 612 trips to the plate.
Duffy was a good producer as recently as 2018, though he struggled the next season during an injury-shortened year and hasn’t played in the majors since. He spent time with the Giants and Yankees on minor league contracts last season, but he wasn’t able to get back to the majors with either club. Primarily a third baseman, Duffy is now a member of a Cubs team with a clear starter there in Kris Bryant, though he has been the subject of trade rumors for a while and could move before next season begins.
Nationals Sign Welington Castillo To Minor League Contract
The Nationals have signed catcher Welington Castillo to a minor league contract, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets. Castillo will earn a $950K salary if he cracks the Nationals’ big league roster.
This is the second straight winter in which Castillo has inked a minors deal with the Nationals, though he didn’t play at all last year after opting out over COVID-19 concerns. He’ll now vie for a spot on a Nationals team that has just one proven catcher in Yan Gomes. Tres Barrera, who has two major league plate appearances on his resume, is the only other catcher on the team’s 40-man roster.
Last time he took the field, Castillo batted .209/.267/.417 with 12 home runs in 251 plate appearances as a member of the White Sox in 2019. Historically, though, the 33-year-old has been a rather effective offensive player relative to his position. Castillo has amassed 2,701 PA in the bigs with a handful of teams and combined for a .254/.313/.426 line and 98 homers.
Giants Sign John Brebbia
The Giants have signed right-handed reliever John Brebbia to a major league deal worth $800K for next season, Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group reports. It’s fully guaranteed, per Jeff Passan of ESPN.
Brebbia came available when the Cardinals non-tendered him earlier this month. They would have owed him a projected $800K in arbitration had they kept Brebbia, but after he missed all of last season because of Tommy John surgery, the Cardinals decided to go in another direction. He could be a member of the Giants for the next three seasons, as he’s under arbitration control through 2023.
Because he went under the knife in late June, Brebbia will not be able to help the Giants for at least the first couple months of next season – if it starts on time or anywhere close, that is. But the Giants are nonetheless taking a low-risk chance on a pitcher who posted terrific numbers out of the Cardinals’ bullpen from 2017-19. Brebbia, now 30 years old, combined for 175 innings of 3.14 ERA/3.39 FIP ball with 10.18 K/9 and 2.79 BB/9 during that span. Despite a paltry 28 percent groundball rate, Brebbia has allowed just 0.98 home runs per nine during his career.
Royals Re-Sign Erick Mejia To Minor League Deal
The Royals announced Monday that they’ve agreed to a new minor league contract with infielder/outfielder Erick Mejia, whom they’d non-tendered earlier in the month.
The 26-year-old Mejia has appeared in 17 games with Kansas City over the past two seasons, batting at a .167/.244/.222 clip in 43 trips to the plate while logging time in center field (46 innings), at third base (26 innings), second base (six innings), left field (six innings) and at shortstop (one inning).
Mejia, originally signed by the Mariners, was traded to the Dodgers in exchange for Joe Wieland in 2016. The Dodgers shipped him to Kansas City in the three-team swap that sent Joakim Soria from the Royals to the White Sox and lefty Scott Alexander from K.C. to L.A., netting the Royals Mejia and righty Trevor Oaks. In parts of three Triple-A seasons, Mejia is a .268/.336/.378 hitter — numbers that fall in line with his career .274/.339/.380 slash across several levels through eight minor league campaigns.
Orioles Sign Nick Ciuffo To Minor League Deal
The Orioles announced Monday that they’ve signed catcher Nick Ciuffo and righty Claudio Custodio to minor league contracts. Baltimore also confirmed its previously reported minor league deals with lefty Fernando Abad and right-hander Conner Greene.
Ciuffo, 25, was the No. 21 overall draft pick by the Rays back in 2013. He never graded out as a top prospect but made it to the big leagues with Tampa Bay in 2018 and 2019, hitting a combined .186/.250/.279 in a tiny sample of 50 plate appearances. Had he been healthy in 2019, he’d quite likely have gotten a longer opportunity to boost those numbers, but thumb surgery cost him 10 weeks of the season.
Ciuffo spent the 2020 season at the Rangers’ alternate training site but didn’t reach the Majors, where Robinson Chirinos, Jeff Mathis and Jose Trevino shouldered most of the workload before top prospect Sam Huff‘s arrival. In seven minor league seasons, Ciuffo is a .250/.299/.379 hitter with a 45 percent caught-stealing rate. He’ll give the O’s some catching depth behind Chance Sisco and Pedro Severino, joining the recently outrighted Austin Wynns as a non-roster option in camp.
The 30-year-old Custodio once ranked near the back end of the Yankees’ top 30 prospects as an infielder, but he moved to the mound in 2015. Injury wiped out his 2017 campaign, and he obviously lost another year to the lack of a minor league season in 2020. Custodio spent 2019 in the Braves organization, where he pitched to a 2.48 ERA with 7.8 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9 in 83 1/3 innings between Class-A and Double-A.
Yankees, Nestor Cortes Jr. Agree To Minor League Deal
Left-hander Nestor Cortes Jr. is headed back to the Yankees organization, as the pitcher himself revealed last week on Instagram. The team hasn’t formally announced the move, which is surely a minor league pact. “I’m extremely excited to announce I will be a Yankee again,” Cortes wrote. “I’m truly lucky to have this opportunity. It’s time to work to get up there.”
Cortes, who recently turned 26, was a 36th-round pick by the Yankees back in 2013 and has spent parts of the past three seasons in the big leagues. The Orioles selected him in the Rule 5 Draft back in 2017 and gave him his big league debut during the 2018 season. However, the O’s cut him loose after just 4 2/3 frames and returned him to the Yankees.
In 2019, Cortes made his Yankees debut, appearing in 33 Major League games but struggling to the tune of a 5.67 ERA and 5.57 FIP. He averaged better than a strikeout per inning (9.3 K/9) but was too prone to walks (3.8 BB/9) and especially to home runs (2.2 HR/9) to have much success. It was more of the same with the Mariners in 2020, when Cortes was tagged 13 earned runs and a staggering six home runs in just 7 2/3 innings.
All in all, Cortes has a grisly 6.72 ERA in 79 Major League frames, but he’s been excellent in Triple-A, with a 3.11 ERA and a 199-to-62 K/BB ratio in 205 1/3 innings. He’s been sharp thus far in the Dominican Winter League as well, holding opponents to five runs on 11 hits and five walks with 21 strikeouts through 15 2/3 innings.
Big league struggles notwithstanding, three different big league teams have been intrigued enough by Cortes and his potential to give him a look over the past three seasons. He’ll surely have to earn his way onto the roster with a big spring showing or perhaps some early success in Triple-A, but the Yankees are in need of pitching depth and Cortes provides that both in the rotation and the bullpen.
Minor MLB Transactions: 12/20/20
The latest minor transactions from around the sport…
Latest Updates
- Earlier this week, the Rays signed right-hander Chris Ellis to a minor league deal, as originally reported by MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link). Originally a third-round pick for the Angels in the 2014 draft, Ellis was part of the trade package that brought Andrelton Simmons to Los Angeles back in November 2015. The 28-year-old has a 4.80 ERA, 2.10 K/BB rate, and 8.5 K/9 over 645 1/3 career minor league innings for three different organizations (the Angels, Braves, and Cardinals), and he also had a cup of coffee in the big leagues with the Royals in 2019, appearing in one game.
Earlier Today
- The Nationals have signed right-hander Jefry Rodríguez to a minor-league contract with an invitation to MLB spring training, reports Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post (Twitter link). The 27-year-old originally signed with the Nats as an international amateur from the Dominican Republic. He was traded to Cleveland in the November 2018 Yan Gomes deal. Rodríguez posted a 5.20 ERA with underwhelming strikeout (16.5%) and walk (13.3%) rates in 98.2 MLB innings from 2018-19. He spent last season at the Indians’ alternate training site, where he strained his shoulder in September. Cleveland non-tendered him earlier this month.
- The Mariners announced they signed reliever Drew Steckenrider earlier this month (h/t to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America). The 29-year-old broke into the majors with a pair of productive seasons with the Marlins but went down early in 2019 with a season-ending flexor strain. He spent all of 2020 on the injured list and was outrighted off Miami’s 40-man roster in October. The right-hander turns 30 in January.
Yankees Re-Sign Adam Warren
Earlier this week, the Yankees agreed to a minor-league deal with Adam Warren, reports Brendan Kuty of NJ.com (Twitter link). This marks the 33-year-old’s fourth separate stint in the organization.
Warren had plenty of success as a multi-inning reliever early in his career. Between 2013-17 (all but a half-season of which came with New York), he posted a 3.34 ERA/3.76 FIP over 409.2 innings. Warren remained fairly productive in a 2018 season split between the Yankees and Mariners but had a disastrous 2019 after signing with the Padres. His San Diego tenure culminated in a September Tommy John surgery.
The right-hander signed a two-year minor-league deal (covering his post-TJS rehab in year one) with the Yankees last offseason. He was cut loose this past July, but GM Brian Cashman expressed an interest at the time in working out a new deal with Warren this winter. That has apparently come to pass. Fourteen months removed from the Tommy John procedure, Warren has fully recovered, Kuty hears. He’ll now look to work his way back into the Yankees’ bullpen mix.